Less Than He Is
by Decidedly Average
Summary: "He thrives on joking, fooling around. A serious commitment would suffocate him. It would be like…clipping the wings of an eagle…and that's why I let him go." - Nikki is ready to open up and Leo learns that love doesn't necessarily mean gain. One shot separate from 'Elintézetlen'.


**A one-shot. With the attempt of making 'silent quitness' a bit more bearable.**

**Hope you all like it, please review if you do!**

A knock at his office door. She always comes in without waiting on a reply. He is forced to hide the hand written letter – held with shaking hands – under his desk. He thinks she notices as her eyes wander to his hidden hands. He can't help but notice how painfully thin she looks. How frail.

"_We have an arrival, Leo."_

"_Okay, thanks."_

At this she usually leaves, but she lingers still.

"_Is he well?"_

He debates lying to her. To save her the hurt, rescue her from any unnecessary thought of him. Then he realises that it wouldn't be fair. She asked, and so has a right to know. That has always been Nikki Alexander, his very dear colleague, who has the ability to care about those she loves with such genuine compassion.

Even if they did throw it all back in her face.

"_He's well. Settling in over there. Though it's a bit hot for him, I think."_

Leaning against the doorframe, she gives him a smile that seems to weigh down her entire body. It is a reminiscent smile, laced with sadness and a tiredness that could only come from a woman unable to sleep at night, as she goes over and over in her head what she might have done wrong.

He had never fully understood why Harry Cunningham left. It was sudden, emotionless. He had made the feeble excuse about having no flat of his own over here now anyway, and left. No leaving party, no one last team drink and chat at a nearby pub. He was angry, frustrated, more for her than for any other reason. He knows how she felt for him and as always, had wanted to protect her.

But how does one even start to build up again, after something like that?

He had left him in the lurch too. With no time for immediate replacement, he remembers being up all hours to keep the Lyell ticking over and to allow Nikki some time alone. Away from anywhere that would remind her of him. The Harry he had known wouldn't have done something like this to his friends. When he had left, he seemed blinded, panicked, not himself. A professorship is not to be coughed at, under any circumstances, but he knows that Harry was never bothered about promotion, not really.

It was the way he used to look at _her_, when he thought no one else was looking, that told Leo Dalton that it would take a lot more than a professorship to chase Harry away.

Maybe she thought that too. He thought that they belonged together, to each other. If that was her mind-set too then she must have been left so confused, upset. Since Harry told him of his departure he didn't see Harry and Nikki together again, and when he saw Nikki, she was stoic, emotionless. It was almost as if she had given up, everyone else had left her, why should he be any different?

He has no doubt that she'd cry alone though. He has lost count of the amount of times he has seen her look so lost that all he wants is to make all the bad things abandon her instead. Instead of the good, for once.

"_He writes very fondly of you, Nikki. Do you want to read it?"_

"_No."_

"_I don't think he's completely happy, if that means anything to you."_

"_It means everything to me."_

He frowns at her, and for the first time since Harry's departure, it seems a spark of the old Nikki is reignited. She is a woman with a brilliant mind. He wonders if she knows something he doesn't. About the loss you suffered a mere 5 months ago. They look at each other for a long while and he gages that she is ready to talk and motions for her to sit. She does. Looking more confident that she has in months.

"_A conflict of interest?"_

"_No. Never that. We knew what we wanted. It was the same thing…that was the problem. Harry couldn't cope with real life. Grownup life. When things get serious, he gets scared, and he runs. "_

He is frowning now. She knows he'd never push her, but she finds herself wanting to tell him, and with every word of truth that escapes her, she feels herself growing lighter.

"_Things were shaping, changing, between Harry and I. We both felt it. We he came to stay, life was so easy. It was like he'd been there all along. We both realised what was possible, what we could do. We could be together, and it could work. We could be something amazing."_

"_But he didn't want that?"_

"_No. He wanted it. He might have even wanted it more than I did."_

She recalls feeling his presence in her room, one of the nights he was on call she remembers. She had tried not to react when she had felt his face nearing hers as he crouched at her bedside. One hand on her hip, the other brushing hair gently from her face…_"I've been called out, I won't be gone long. Sleep well." _A gentle, lingering kiss to her forehead. It became a routine, his night time visits to her room and sometimes she found herself willing his phone to ring in the middle of the night just so he would have to kiss her goodnight. He never mentioned it the next day. Neither did she. But as time went on, they became more intense. She never did find out if he knew she was awake.

"_But Harry can't do anything seriously. He thrives on joking, fooling around. A serious commitment would suffocate him. It would be like…clipping the wings of an eagle…and that's why I let him go."_

Leo is nonplussed.

"_You could have made him at least try!"_

As he told her about his departure his voice was low, hushed almost, he sounded guilty. She didn't shout, or cry or hit out at him, nor did he try and touch her, reach out to her. She didn't pretend to be happy for him, nor did he pretend to be excited about it. The whole thing was very emotionless. All, but the one, single kiss on his final way out of her flat. They had closed their eyes and it was only in that one split second as he kissed her, that she had thought about persuading him to stay, yelling at him until she was numb about how great they could be if only he would just _change_. Thank fully he had captured her lips, rendering her unable to speak. Then, the moment had passed and he had gone. Forever.

"_I could never ask him to be less than he is."_

In a roundabout way, he understands. Though he knows he would never fully understand his two colleagues. The time, the energy, the love they poured into one another, had in the end, all been for nothing. But had it really? Their love had been a spectacle to behold. So selfless, it had exploded spectacularly and then settled as two separate beings, thousands of miles apart, in the shape of two hearts, encased in muscle and bone.

Regretting every single beat they took without the other.

He feels almost close to tears, thinking of it now.

"_So, that's it then?"_

"_Not necessarily…only until he realises what's good for him."_

With a sigh, she stands, smiles that weary smile and leaves his office to solider through another day.

It is another 16 and a half months before he gets the phone call; NYU Pathology department require the assistance of a Dr Nicola Alexander, home office, London, to revise a post-mortem and lead a lecture on staircase falls in small children. All expenses paid, he assumes Harry must be doing well to offer something like that. There is no promise that it will lead to something. Perhaps they are two different now and it will have fizzled into nothing. But two years on he still remembers how they were and he knows it's worth a try.

Of course, she doesn't hesitate.


End file.
